Last July 4th weekend in the United States was a travel-friendly time, with large groups of people taking advantage of it, and gatherings of many people took place. With COVID-19 vaccination rates increasing in many countries and travel restrictions easing in many parts of the world, we hope these gatherings were safe for everyone involved.
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Last year, Google and Apple introduced system-level updates to enable governments to deploy COVID-19 contact tracing using the ubiquitous computers in everyone’s pockets, our smartphones. This was done at the operating system level and wasn’t limited to the best Android phones or iPhones. However, it’s unclear how many people have taken advantage of this service, or how many can even do so. So over the weekend, Androidcentral readers were asked if they could download and use a contact tracing app.
As contact tracing apps are not widespread in many parts of the world, it was perhaps not surprising that over 50% of respondents had never downloaded one of these apps (47.49%) or were unaware that such apps existed (6.15%). In addition, another 10.34% of respondents said that contact tracing apps were not available in their state, region or municipality. However, what surprised us was that 32.4% of respondents said that they had downloaded a contact tracing app and had even enabled app notifications.
Several people mentioned that they wished they had the opportunity to use such an app. Reader Mindoversoul said, “I live in Missouri, our governor doesn’t believe in science, government, health, or reason. We don’t have a covid tracing app available. I wish we did.”
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Others were lucky enough to use a contact tracing app even though they had already been vaccinated.
Type_Grey said, “I am a California resident. Yes, I downloaded my state’s COVID-19 app (CA Notify). I am vaccinated now, but I still keep it on my device in case others are responsible enough to use it.”
Martin Ibert said he “started using the German Covid Warn app just a few weeks after it was released. I have been fully vaccinated since then, but I still use it.”
See also: Novavax vaccine: Over 90% effective for various mutations of COVID-19
Finally, there were those like reader nycundrgrnd who said they wouldn't use such an app, either because they don't trust the app, the technology, their government, or because they're not afraid of the disease.
Information source: androidcentral.com
